In SaaS, 5th-grade copy converts 6x better than expert copy
SaaS pages written at a 5th-grade reading level convert at 12.9% vs 2.1% for polished, professional prose. Legibility, not cleverness, is the lift.
In SaaS, landing pages written at a 5th-to-7th grade reading level convert at 12.9%. The same pages written in polished, professional prose convert at just 2.1% – about 6x worse. (Across all industries the same effect holds but is milder: 11.1% vs 5.3%, roughly 2x.)
The finding comes from a benchmark of 41 000 landing pages. It isn't about a cleverer headline or more testimonials. It's about legibility: short sentences, plain words, and no jargon, so a visitor grasps the offer in seconds rather than parsing it. That matters even more on mobile, where most SaaS traffic now lands and attention is shortest.
Run your own homepage or pricing page through a free readability checker. If it scores above an 8th-grade level, simplifying the copy may be the cheapest conversion lift on your list this quarter.
Source: Conversion Benchmark Report (SaaS) – Unbounce
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